76 EEPOET OF THE No. 3 



past eight years and is a splendid producer. My men and myself observed in 

 the garden and ate as fine potatoes, onions, tomatoes, corn and carrots as could 

 be grown anywhere, musk and watermelons, and smoked tobacco cultivated on 

 his location. 



All cleared lands not under the plough are covered with wild strawberry 

 vines, wild vetches, and in places wild plum trees. The natural growth of the 

 forest is prodigious in poplar, spruce, tamarac, jack pine, Norway pine and cedar, 

 and in a few places some good white pine, all of which timber is being rapidly 

 taken off the ground by the lumbermen. The soil consists of a white clay loam 

 covered with vegetable mould and producing the thickest growth underbrush, hazel, 

 etc., possible to exist outside of the tropics. 



Wishing to inform the Department that Mr. Oscar Langlais said a lumber- 

 man had taken the iron post previously planted at the southwest corner of Mor- 

 son and the iron post planted by me has also been taken, the first being u&'ed for 

 a sleigh stake, and it is more than likely that the last one has been removed by 

 the same teamster. 



On my way home from Bergland over the Colonization Eoad, may say, it is 

 almost valueless as a summer road, although cut out and corduroyed in the centre, 

 it requires side ditching and the material taken out and placed on the corduroy 

 sufficiently high to raise it above the low land which it is built through, as in 

 many places it is only fit for pedestrians, and even they are compelled to wade 

 knee deep in low wet swamp and it is impassable for horses or waggons in summer. 



My 'conclusions are that the land suitable for farming in this township situ- 

 ated on the Lake of the Woods is mosl; congenial to the habits of the settlers now 

 there and those coming, they are an industrious and plodding people with money, 

 stock and farm implements, who will make good subjects and understand thor- 

 oughly mixed farming, thereby making a valuable class for the advancement and 

 development of this section of the country. 



Good peat bogs exist in the southeast portion and the general formation is 

 Laurentian rock carrying in places iron pyrites but valueless. 



The most important question for consideration is the height of water in the 

 Lake of the Woods, which evolved friction between Canada and the United States 

 in eighteen hundred and eighty-nine, owing to an overflow of said water in Min- 

 nesota, and stopping Eoss, Hall & Brown's mill in Kenora. This matter was 

 called to the attention of the Dominion Government, who instructed me to locate 

 a suitable point on the Winnipeg Eiver for the erection of a dam to regulate the 

 height of water in the Lake of the Woods to its normal condition and remove all 

 obstructions to that end, etc. 



The high water has transformed the Big Grassy Eiver into a navigable stream 

 for steamers, thereby increasing it to three-quarters of a mile in places, making 

 islands which were formerly part of the main land during normal level and sub- 

 merging land suitable for farming, grazing and hay crops. 



A sunken dam existed and now exists which is the main cause for such con- 

 ditions. \^^en the Keewatin Power Company and lumbermen became aware of 

 the intentions of the Dominion Government they purchased the site chosen for 

 the dam and obtained copies of the plans prepared by me and erected the dam, 

 ostensibly for power purposes and to regulate the waters in the Lake of the Woods. 

 The high water continues, although commissioners from the United States Gov- 

 ernment have visited the new power dam and returned evidently satisfied that no 

 obstruction existed, thus the water is kept at an abnormal level and in the spring 

 is two feet and a half higher, causing the submergence of the hay meadows border- 



